Guard Melo Trimble speaks to the reporters crowded around him when the Terps held basketball media day on Oct 21, 2014 at the Xfinity Center.

Everyone around the Terrapins men’s basketball team knows it was picked by a group of writers to finish 10th in its first Big Ten season. The players saw the story in The Columbus Dispatch. Coach Mark Turgeon did, too.

Yet the Terps, who lost five players to transfer this offseason after a disappointing 17-15 campaign, are hardly bothered by the low expectations. Instead, they’re eager for a shot to prove the pundits wrong.

“Being we’re in a new league and what transpired in the past, it’s probably hard to have a lot of confidence that we’re going to be one of the top teams in the Big Ten,” said Turgeon, whose Terps haven’t reached the NCAA tournament since he took over in College Park. “But we have some good talent, we have some good players, and I do think there’s a little extra in us.”

Such was the dominant theme of yesterday’s media day, Turgeon’s fourth at the helm of the program. With a four-member recruiting class ranked in the nation’s top 10 replacing the five departed players and three starters returning from last season, the Terps avoided looking back at the past or lamenting on experts’ prognostications.

Rather, each Terps player expressed calm confidence as reporters fired off question after question. Terps veterans, such as guard Dez Wells, the team’s leading scorer the past two seasons, pointed to the promise of the team’s young players as reason for optimism.

Freshman point guard Melo Trimble, ESPN’s No. 29-ranked rookie, mentioned that he’s been able to lean on four senior rotational players for support. Last season, the Terps didn’t have a single senior earning significant playing time.

As for Turgeon, he’s encouraged by the renewed commitment and coachability of his squad.

“We have a group of guys coming back that are very determined to be successful,” Turgeon said. “Then we have a group of new guys coming that are good basketball players but also very humble.”

Veteran players said they’ve enjoyed the team’s new dynamic. Wells even likes that the Terps were picked to finish in the bottom half of their new conference.

“We can exceed everyone’s expectations of our team,” said Wells, who averaged 14.9 points per game last season. “Nobody thinks we’ll be good. So when people think like that about you, you can’t let anybody down.”

Wells is one of three starters Turgeon has settled on entering the season, along with Trimble and forward Jake Layman. With forward Evan Smotrycz expected to be out four to six weeks after having ankle surgery yesterday, the other two spots are left open, though Turgeon said Damonte Dodd would start at center if the season began today.

The Terps have options as to how they want to fill the fifth spot in the lineup. Turgeon might move Layman, a junior who led the team in minutes played last season, from the small forward to the power forward position, which would give the Terps a smaller look and allow three guards to play at the same time.

But the Terps could play forwards Michal Cekovsky or Jon Graham in the frontcourt, which would keep Layman from guarding interior players.

Either way, Turgeon assured media members yesterday that the Terps can find success while Smotrycz returns to full health.

Turgeon is especially excited to have Trimble manning the point, a position the Terps have struggled to adequately fill over the past few seasons. The sideline general said the highly touted recruit has been better than advertised in practice.

“I’m going to lead the team and have the ball in my hand and I’m going to be very coachable,” Trimble said. “I just want to win.”

Turgeon does too, and he understands the Terps were picked to finish so low in the Big Ten because they didn’t win enough last season.

That’s why the coach is itching for this season to start. Turgeon used yesterday’s media day to suggest his team can sidestep its recent struggles and outdo expectations.

He’s hoping to use the season to prove it.

“It’s never fun what we went through,” Turgeon said. “Chip on our shoulder, whatever you want to call it, we’re pretty determined.”